The effect of maternal separation stress-induced depression on ovarian reserve in Sprague Dawley Rats: The possible role of imipramine and agmatine through a mTOR signal pathway.

Purpose: To examine the possible role of impramine and agmatine through a mTOR signal pathway on rat ovary after maternal separation stress-induced depression.

Methods: Sprague Dawley neonatal female rats were divided into control, maternal separation (MS), MS+imipramine, and MS+agmatine groups. Rats were subjected to MS for 4 hours daily from postnatal day (PND) 2 to PND 21 and pups were exposed to social isolation (SI) on PND23 for 37 days for model establishment treated with imipramine (30 mg/kg; ip) or agmatine (40 mg/kg; ip) for 15 days. In order to examine behavioral changes rats were all subjected to locomotor activity and forced swimming tests (FST). Ovaries were isolated for morphological evaluation, follicle counting and mTOR signal pathway protein expression levels were detected.

Results: Increased number of primordial follicles and diminished ovarian reserve in the MS groups were detected. Imipramine treatment caused diminished ovarian reserve and atretic follicle; however, agmatine treatment provided the maintenance of ovarian follicular reserve after MS. mTOR signal pathway may have an important role during rat ovarian follicular development in model of MS.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that agmatine may help to protect ovarian reserve during follicular development by controlling cell growth.